


Every Whisper, of Every Waking Hour

by Nina36



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Homophobic Slurs, M/M, Marcus/Mouse in the past, Post-Season/Series 02, i ship tomarcus with the burning intensity of a million suns, idek guys, mentions of child abuse, might add a chapter later, that cliffhanger killed me dead, there's some swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 17:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13194972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nina36/pseuds/Nina36
Summary: The elephant is in the room: it is bright pink and she has tiptoed around the issue long enough.He has tiptoed around it long enough: leaving things unsaid, burying thoughts and inventing white lies so that he can live with them.





	Every Whisper, of Every Waking Hour

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Losing my Religion" by REM  
> I don't know, that thing just couldn't leave me alone, so I needed to write it down.  
> Sorry for any grammar mistakes -- no beta and English is not my language.

Apparently, all demons seem to know that he is no longer Marcus Keane’s protégé, that they no longer work together.

Come to think of it, the demons seem to know a hell of a lot, lately, whereas he feels like a blind and deaf man – he knows nothing. Nothing that truly matters to him, anyway.

Life on the road with Mouse is – exhausting, but he doesn’t complain. Actually, he likes to be so tired that he has no time for regrets, no time to mull over his mistakes or the things he hasn’t said or done.

They need more bullets, Tomas thinks idly, wondering whether Mouse even cares that many of the “suicides” she stages only buy them enough time to skip town. He sincerely doubts she does; besides, she often sets bodies on fire, _after_ so it’s really a moot point.

They do need the bullets anyway. Not that he has used a gun – oh, no – perish the thought! He can get demons inside his head, he can and has to listen and see to all the filthy things they show and whisper to him, but she won’t allow him to pull a trigger.

Not yet, anyway.

He hates the old car they’re driving in at the moment. It’s absurd, silly and pathetic but he cried in the shower after they ditched the green truck. Mouse’s words were, “They know this truck, we need to lay low and get the bloody hell away from Washington’s state.”

True. All true. And with Bennett gone AWOL (which means one thing and one only and they both know that.) the loss of that old truck should have been the last of his worries, and yet he did cry in the shower, mourning the loss of yet another piece of his life with Marcus.

Mouse noticed, but she did not say a word (she rarely does anyway, which is comforting for him), but she let him drive the morning after, even if she thought and still thinks he’s a lousy driver.

 

* * *

 

“I was in love with him once.” She says one night.

They are in a motel room, he has stopped caring which state are they into weeks before. They never stay long enough anyway – Mouse doesn’t really believe in ritual and repetition.

He has a headache (a common occurrence nowadays), his collar is on the night table on his right, above the Bible, he’s holding a rosary in his hands, it’s Marcus’, it’s not the one he used to kill brother Simon – it’s another one, old and clearly worn and he can’t remember why he has it. How did it end up among his belongings?

He knows she were. He wants to tell her as much, but decides against it. He doesn’t trust Mouse, but he knows that she is not lying about that. He sees it in her eyes. And the fact that she chose to tell him that, begs all sort of questions he’s too tired to even contemplate.

“It gets better,” She says, after a moment (he is not sure, sometimes he isn’t even sure he’s not stuck inside his own head courtesy of the demon do jour).

He doesn’t speak, at first, he wants to count up to ten because he doesn’t trust himself, not with _that_ (whatever the hell it is), but he gives up on three and says, “Could have fooled me.”

He doesn’t even recognise his own voice which, he guesses, is on par with the stranger with bloodshot eyes he sees in the mirror every day. When did he become like that?

She smiles, sugary sweet, and if the headache wasn’t killing him he would be wary, perhaps, because he has seen that same exact smile on her face, mere seconds before she shot some poor possessed person in the head.

“Didn’t say it was easy.” She closes her Bible – she doesn’t draw on It, but she fills it with dates and initials and what he thinks might be coordinates, and adds, “I see you didn’t ask me if he was in love with me.”

The fact that they didn’t even need to use his name, that it’s a given that she was talking about Marcus should perhaps be more embarrassing. It isn’t.

Anyway, it’s true – he didn’t ask. He thinks he already knows the answer.

“I don’t care!” He says instead.

She shakes her head. She doesn’t believe him, but she’s gracious enough not to point out his lie.

 

* * *

 

 

He has nightmares. He has always had very vivid dreams, even before he had his first vision that lead him to a British priest trying to save the soul of a Mexican kid. Even demons know what a scary place his subconscious can be when he closes his eyes.

“Seen him eviscerated again last night, didn’t you, priest?” The woman snarls, rotting teeth and chapped lips, blood on her chin, unnaturally black eyes staring up at him.

He keeps praying, he knows Mouse is losing her patience, but he’s got to try to save the soul the way Marcus taught him to.

The demon chuckles (what the hell? Is he truly such an open book to them?) and says, “He’s fine. He’s free. He’s probably sucking some cock wishing it was yours.”

He doesn’t get to hear the rest, Mouse injects the possessed woman with a generous dose of holy water (she _has_ got a sadistic steak a mile long when it comes to demons) and she bursts into flames, and he’s almost happy.

They’re outside, and he taking in the cold air of the night, still smelling the woman’s burnt skin when she says, “You need to get him out of your head – “

He stops in front of their car, yet another anonymous Ford, and snaps, “And how’s worked out for you, so far, _hermana_?”

Round and round they go, in the end, there is just one thing they have in common: Marcus Keane and the hole he left in both their hearts when he left.

And yes, perhaps there is something else too – but he can’t go there. Not if he wants to face another demon.

He wants to lash out at her because it’s easy – because she is made of steel and scars and she genuinely doesn’t care about him except for how he can exorcise demons from within.

“The difference is that _I_ don’t matter.” She replies, calmly. She rarely loses her patience, she rarely shows feelings, she’s what Marcus could have been if the Church had kicked him out sooner. She’s her own woman, but her voice falters a little when she adds, right before getting into the car, “Not to the demons and not to _him._ ”

He gets in the car, speechless, and sees the way she grips the steering wheel. “Do what you have to do: fuck him out of your system or learn to deal with it. We are at war!” She says.

He doesn’t ask her what did she do: did she fuck Marcus out of her system? Did she pick up tall, blonde, blue eyed men and pretended it was him? Or did she fake it until she meant it?

She still hasn’t answered his question: how’s worked out for her?

* * *

 

He knows it’s a vision. He’s had them long enough now that he can recognise the feelings that come with them.

Of course, he hasn’t got a clue whether his vision comes from God or the Adversary, he’s just in them.

He is in a room he doesn’t recognise; there are smells, however, that he has become familiar with: _Eau du possession_ he calls it; that mix of bile, vomit, sweat, and something even worse – it might be slightly different every time, but it’s the putrid smell of demons; it fills up every space with its presence.

There is a bed, at the centre of the room, he must be in some kind of Church, at least judging by the windows, there’s a man at the foot of the bed, gently wiping away sweat and vomit from the woman’s skin. He takes a step toward them, but freezes when he recognises the two people in the room: it’s Marcus and Mouse!

They both look younger, so it’s the past – it’s whatever happened that turned Mouse into the soldier he travels with and Marcus in the man who is still known, despite his excommunication, as the greatest living Catholic exorcist.

He is young, Marcus – he has long hair and he still hasn’t got the tattoo on his wrist. He recognises right away the signs of too little sleep and too much bad coffee.

He is singing as he keeps wiping Mouse’s face with that cloth – and his voice is soft, _loving._

_I was in hell, Marcus. For six months. And you just left me there._

He remembers what she told him, that day, it’s been one of the very few times he has heard real emotion coming from Mouse. Six months. He wonders where in the past is he. Which point of those six months he’s been allowed to see (why?).

Mouse opens her eyes and he knows right away that it’s not her. Mouse is hard, relentless and unforgiving, but the look in her eyes is never cold or malicious. And he wants to touch Marcus, he wants to warn him, drag him away from there, but he knows it’s useless. Those visions make him see, hear and even feel the events, but he cannot interact with the people he sees. He can only _watch._

“Thought you were gone for good after last time. The offer still stands.” The demon says, and spreads her legs, under the blankets in a suggestive way.

“Bugger off – “Marcus says, but that man is not the one he has met, the one he knows; the one who pried him away from Casey’s crotch. This Marcus Keane is young and _vulnerable._

“She wants you, you know? All the time you were together, whenever you touched her when you were together she was all wet for you.” The demon chuckles, “Hours on her knees, begging for forgiveness but deep down she just wanted you to fuck her!”

Marcus is still holding the wet cloth in his hand. He is not talking, he is not doing anything.

He is _compromised._

_I fought to save you._

He remembers what he said, that day. He can see in the young man’s face the truth of those words. He knows that he must have given everything he was to try and save that young woman.

“And you –” Another chuckle, mocking and somehow obscene at the same time and Tomas notices how the demon is using Mouse’s voice, how she must have sounded at the time.

He wants to wake up, he’d rather see Marcus exorcise the demon, or have one of his nightmares than seeing him like _that._

_Day and night._

Marcus swallows, “If you’re still there, Mouse – please know that I am sorry.” He says, “It’s my fault.”

The demon roars, Marcus’ words hitting it like a prayer or, perhaps, in that moment, Mouse was trying to fight its hold on her. He doesn’t know.

“You will run again, Man of God. Leave someone else behind, maybe that time you will have the guts to take what you want, you want to hide behind your God!” The demon spits and it sounds like – a prophecy, it sounds like words fated to come true.

_Everything I had,  everything inside me, it wasn’t enough._

“You will be banished, ashes of the Earth,” Marcus says, but he can say that there is something missing in Marcus, that…

He wasn’t in that room to exorcise Mouse. He was saying goodbye to her.

_I wasn’t enough._

“But it won’t be you. A chink in your shining armour, Man of God. You did not save the little church mouse. You should have tasted her. It feels so good inside of her. Tight and warm. She  is _delicious!_ ”

He closes his eyes. So many things make sense, now.

That was the reason why those particular words set Marcus up.

Oh, Marcus.

He closes his eyes. And that smell, the putrid, almost tangible sign that a demon is in the room fades, and he hears water, he can smell the sea. He is almost afraid of opening his eyes, but he knows he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter, and when he does the landscape is familiar, it’s the dock from where Mouse and him have departed when they finally left that forsaken island.

And Marcus is there, hidden, and it’s the same sky – he remembers so clearly that it was blue, after days of rain and grey all over. Marcus is wearing the hat, he is good at hiding but – if he had turned on his left he would have seen him one last time.

“No te alcanzará ningún mal, ninguna plaga se acercará a tu carpa, porque hiciste del Señor tu refugio y pusiste como defensa al Altísimo.” Marcus is whispering in Spanish, and Tomas recognises right away the words, it’s Psalm 91, and while he was sailing away from that Island, Marcus was there, watching them go away.

He doesn’t understand. Why is he being shown that?

Why is he being shown Marcus’ past? He knew that he loved Mouse, he knew he felt like he didn’t have another choice after Andy’s death.

Is he supposed to do more?

* * *

 

_He is thirteen, there are no demons in the room, there is just Sean and him. The room is bare. The floor is cold, his feet are bare._

_He is thirteen and has already exorcised a few demons, the other boys have stopped throwing things at him, and he hasn’t cut himself for months. He goes to sleep and his dreams might be scary, but they’re better than what he used to see when he closed his eyes._

_“You have to learn how to be strong, boy. You are not a complete waste of space, but you let's see if you can be a really good exorcist.” Sean says._

_He is getting closer, but he knows that he won’t touch him. He has stopped touching him the minute he exorcised the first demon._

_He doesn’t say a word. He has always been a fast learner, he knows that the best way to get in trouble with Sean or one of the priests is to talk without their permission. Besides, he’s talking about making him a good exorcist – and he wants to._

_“Demons sniff weakness. They know if you’re hurting; if you’re weak and they will eat you alive.” Sean says._

_He nods. He might have just started, but he knows that. Thing is – he is not afraid of demons. Since he saw God he isn’t afraid of anything._

_“Good. Learn to bear the pain, son – learn to take it and use it and no demon will ever hurt you.” Sean says and, for a moment, he sounds almost proud of him._

_He pretends he doesn’t want to puke when the man touches his bare back. He doesn’t care, not right now. The man can teach him how to be a better exorcist._

_He wants to learn._

 

He is fifty-three, his body is filled with scars, he is too pale, and just the latent fear of turning into his father has stopped him from getting drunk every bloody night since he killed Andy Kim.

He is fifty-three and for the first time since he was seven, he is absolutely free of doing whatever he wants: no social services, no priests, no Church, no collar, no demons to exorcise. He knows that there are people (demons) searching for him, but he doesn’t particularly care.

He’s not a priest, he’s not an exorcist, he’s just a middle-aged bloke working his ass off twelve hours a day for minimum wage, trying to scrounge up the courage to get himself fucked (or fuck someone) and finally sever ties with the Church. There's no use in being celibate if he’s an empty vessel.

He’s fifty-three and he has been in love twice (Peter might have become something more, but he deserves far more than him and the mess he would get in.) – and how ironic that the only two people he has loved in his life are now travelling and exorcising demons together. Is that his true legacy? Exposing people to horror and see how they fare?

He’s fifty-three, he can speak far too many languages, but barely speaks a word during the day while working. It’s hard work, the sort of work that makes his back hurt and hands blister, but it’s also good, honest and allows him not to think (or overthink) things.

Lately, he has been thinking about Sean – the old bastard was a pig, mad as a dog, but he taught him to bear pain and face demons without breaking. He wonders what he would say now – that he has cocked things up twice, now that he is _compromised._

Perhaps, that is the night where he will take up the offer of some bloke or some woman and will try to push everything else behind.

How he failed Mouse – and she became the sort of woman who would kill an innocent man to banish a demon. How he would have torn the world apart to save Tomas and how it _terrifies_ him because for the first time in his life he put someone else before God, before His word.

Yes. Have a nice shag, not to think about _anything_ for a while. That’s what he wants.

No.

That is not what (who) he wants. But he cannot and won’t ruin Tomas more than he has already done. Mouse is ruthless but she needs Tomas, and as long as she needs him she will protect him.

_And then what?_

He clenches his jaws, letting the bitter and cold wind hit him.

He can’t help Tomas. He can’t help anyone.

* * *

 

Bennet is still AWOL, Mouse is discreetly investigating (now he gets why she calls herself _that_ : she’s quiet, can be invisible when she wants to) his whereabouts, but there is not much they can do, unless they decide to expose themselves which even in his current state of mind knows it would be a mistake.

He is refusing painkillers, he doesn’t even want to know where Mouse got them, but the last thing he needs is for his mind to be foggy.

“We can’t head west,” Mouse says. He has no clue about what she’s talking about. He doesn’t even know where they are – or, at least, he’s not sure, somewhere in New Jersey, perhaps?

They are being followed, they are getting closer and closer every day, to the point that Mouse has succinctly told him that she will teach him to shoot a gun: “just in case.”

He has not refused, but he hasn’t said yes either.

Mouse got him a gun anyway, it’s small and it sickens him, but he has thanked the woman all the same. She is trying. She trains him – she is helping him channel his gift telling him, in no uncertain terms, to bugger off whenever he questions its origin.

“It’s there! If you can use it to destroy demons who cares where does it come from?” She says.

They jog and spar together, and he wonders whether she is still a nun, or she’s excommunicated like Marcus.

“Where do you suggest we go?” He asks, pretending he cares. One place is like the other when he spends half of the time with some demon in his head and the other half either numb or with splitting headaches.

“We have to be unpredictable, the less we decide now, the less the demons know …” She trails.

Of course, demons know everything about him. It must be why he’s never privy to Mouse’s decisions.

“How do you do that?” He asks.

She cocks her head, clearly confused by his words. Right, she is _not_ Marcus, even after months on the road together, sharing motel rooms, she still doesn’t get what he means. Marcus did – since the beginning,

“You might want to be more specific, Tomas.” She says. She folds the map she was reading from and patiently waits for him to talk.

“Why can’t they see inside of you?” He asks. But it’s not what he truly means to ask her – he wants to know how he can protect himself. Marcus did it, she does it all the time.

For once, she seems to understand. She sighs and says, “Marcus would kill me if …”

“Well, he’s not here, is he? I don’t care about him!” He says.

It’s such a blatant lie that Mouse actually bursts out laughing. And she has a nice laughter, he sees for a moment the young novice Marcus must have met and fallen in love with so long before

“I’m not a demon and I can see how to mess with your head a mile away. I told you once, didn’t I? Fuck him out of your system or learn to deal with it!”

The elephant is in the room: it is bright pink and she has tiptoed around the issue long enough.

He has tiptoed around it long enough: leaving things unsaid, burying thoughts and inventing white lies so that he can live with them.

How Pazuzu took Marcus’ form to mess with him.

How all it took for Andy’s demon was to use Marcus and utter some praise words to lure him in.

How not a night goes by without him dreaming or seeing somehow Marcus.

“What did you do?” He asks because he can’t – say it. He can’t face it. And the air in the small motel room they have rented is stale and he needs to go out. He needs...

He needs – to go back in time, to St. Aquinas and leave Marcus be, protect him, tell him that God has not abandoned him, that he is His son and he still radiates His grace.

He needs to – go back to that day in the hut and shoot Andy himself, to avoid Marcus having to make that choice.

He wants – no needs to stop Marcus before he walks out of that door, he needs to tell him that he can’t do jack squat without him. He doesn’t know how to any more.

“I did both,” She says.

She sighs, “C’mon,” She adds after a moment, “Let’s go for a ride.”

He follows her. He is lost.

He is in love with Marcus Keane.

* * *

 

There is a part of her, a small, petty fragment of the stupid girl she used to be that wants to tell Tomas that he is lucky, that at least Marcus saved him before walking out on him. He, at least, got to say good bye. She wasn’t so lucky.

All she had, when she finally woke up, was an old git all but telling her that she got what she deserved for forgetting her place.

Part of her wants to twist the knife and tell him what she saw on the Island: the way Marcus looked at him, how he killed a man to save him without blinking, without regrets.

Part of her wants to tell him that that’s what happens when one gets too close to the sun – because to her Marcus was (still is) the sun.

She can’t, however.

She has seen Tomas withering away since they left the Island. He goes through the motions, he does what he’s asked to do, he trains diligently, but he’s – _broken_.

She doesn’t know whether it’s been Marcus leaving him that did it, or it’s using his gift as often as he does, but Tomas is not alright.

She has told him the truth in the few instances where she has broached the subject: she was in love with Marcus, once. And maybe, in his own way, Marcus felt something for her as well. But that part of her life is tainted by what happened in the Abbey.

She fucked Marcus Keane out of her system, after. She did it out of heartbreak, anger, shame – and then because some guy had a similar laughter, or the same hue of his eyes, or simply because he liked soul music or was decent at drawing.

She learned to deal with it. Demons cannot touch that because she is not ashamed of what she felt for Marcus, she is not ashamed of having loved someone so much. She is still ashamed of her stupidity, of how naïve she was, of how she failed Marcus.

Demons never get to know that, however. She deals with them long before they can glimpse underneath decades of training and practice.

“Where are we going?” Tomas asks. As usual, he sounds like he doesn’t really care.

At first, it was useful that Tomas was like that. She doesn’t have the patience or the nurturing attitude Marcus had with him, but now she is worried.

“Night off. Get rid of the collar, forget demons for a night –“ She says. She tries to sound jovial, but she is worried.

There are things Tomas doesn’t know. There are demons (men) she has taken care of, her contacts are scared and some of them are disappearing, slipping below the grid. News from the Vatican is dire and there is still the matter of Bennet.

She has left a message for Marcus, through one of their mutual contacts (perks of being a Church mouse? Marcus had no idea about her and what she did, but she has always kept tabs on him) to beware of Bennet.

If he is integrated, then the war is all but lost. Bennet knows where all the remaining exorcists are. And with the Vatican’s resources, he can find them and eliminate the threat.

There is a reason if the only living person who knows her real name is Marcus: all her records have been carefully deleted for the past few years, and she knows the same way she knows that water is wet that Marcus will die before revealing any secret he might know.

Not for her, of course. For Tomas. She doubts there’s anything he wouldn’t do for Tomas Ortega. She is not jealous. Not anymore.

She has been, in that hut, when she saw the two men talking to each other; when she heard parts of what they said, how Marcus said that he didn’t want to lose Tomas.

Tomas asked to be brought back and Marcus did, she saw him killing a man (he was lost, there was no way back for him, and if they had listened to her they would have been spared so much pain, but that wasn’t God’s will).

She doesn’t care about what the two men feel for each other, it’s not her place, not her life, but the two best exorcists she knows (and there are so little left of them) are almost lost because of silence, unsaid things, rules that don’t make sense and just plain male stupidity. 

So, she is driving, Tomas asked her how she does it, how demons can’t see inside of her. She’s not bloody Yoda. She is not Marcus Keane. God doesn’t speak to her. She has just decades of experience and Tomas needs to get drunk and talk.

That’s the first step.

 

* * *

 

 

_He’s fifteen. He has his Bible, never skips a meal, and has scars under his soles and on his back. Training is hard. It is painful, but it’s never worse than his father’s belt. Demons don’t scare him; they’re filth. At first, he almost pitied them because he gets how not being close to God could lead to madness._

_Sean disabused him of that notion fairly quickly._

_Their job is to banish demons all the way back to hell, not to pity them._

_The girl can’t be older than ten, she must be nice, pretty even when not possessed. He doesn’t like exorcising children and that is precisely why Sean threw him into that room._

_Bastard_.

_He is fifteen, he’s been an orphan for eight years, got sucked into the system and sold to the Church for five quids and the girl, with red hair and green eyes talks to him using his mother’s voice._

_He’s been told it could happen. Sean trained him, threw every single memory of his brief and exhausting life at him while he was walking on broken glass._

“Use the pain, use it as a weapon and you won’t be a waste of air, lad.” _He says._

_“Always known you’d end up a cocksucker.” The child, using his mum’s voice says._

_Well, that is new. Both the demon using his mum’s voice and the other thing._

_It happened only once. He liked it far too much and Sean kicked him in the ribs and reminded him of his calling._

_“You want to go and be a cocksucker, be my guest. But you will not be allowed to be an exorcist or a priest.” He told him._

  _The idea of not exorcising demons, of not feeling God’s grace flowing through him terrifies him. The words are true, the Church is the gun and he is the arm._

_The words are true._

_All of them. What the demons say, using his mum’s thick Irish accent and the content. But God’s words are more powerful. The room shakes, the demon shrieks, she scratches his arms (years later, many years later he will still have faint scars on his forearms) there’s a noise like a prolonged whistle before the demon scatters._

_The words are true._

_He’s a sodomyte, a pervert, a cocksucker, a murderer._

_He’s an exorcist._

 

He lives in a room, there is a small kitchenette, a windowless bathroom and an old tv. The heater is bollocks, he has cold showers most mornings, but that is nothing new, not really. He gets frostbites on his fingers, sticks to one or two beers at night (not Bourbon, _never_ whiskey), he is still technically speaking a virgin.

His life has been a series of “technically”; he was technically an exorcist even before he became a priest. He didn’t technically break his vows, but he did fall in love with Mouse; they talked together, took long walks, flirted, danced once, but never kissed, let alone have sex.

He is excommunicated; therefore, he cannot take Holy Communion (the Body of Christ) or even go to Confession, but he goes to Mass every morning before going to work.

He is technically overqualified for the job he has (there’s a degree somewhere in the Vatican with his name attached to it), but he doesn’t care.

He is irrevocably in love with a man but he was the one who left him and now, months later, he can’t think of one good reason why.

Well.

He killed a man and he didn’t regret it. There cannot be absolution without repentance – and he would have annihilated the world itself to save Tomas Ortega. He would do that again in a heartbeat.

He is unworthy. He destroyed Mouse’s life  - he didn’t want that life for her and the demon took her to get him. He has destroyed Tomas’ life: forced him to sever ties to his life, to live on the road and failed him when he needed him the most.

The people he works with don’t know about his past, they see him pray from time to time (a habit of a lifetime cannot be broken, not even with God’s silence and his own shortcomings), so he has the habit of waiting for his lunch break to go and pray.

He always prays near the water, it’s where he has always felt closer to God. It reminds him of the last time he truly felt Him, His glory flow through him; it happened in Chicago, during the Rance’s exorcism. 

_He is not praying_ at the moment. Sometimes he just – he’s just an old git who still marvels, even after everything he has seen and experienced at the sheer beauty of God’s creation: the colour of the sky, the bright reflexes on the otherwise grey water, even the cold, chilly morning.

He’s not Saint Francis of Assisi, not by any stretch of imagination; he’s a sinner (a killer, a liar, a cocksucker) but the words of his prayer are in his mind that morning: “Praised be You, my Lord For Sister Water; So very useful and humble And precious and chaste.”

_Marcus, son, can you hear me?_

He’s gotten so used to the silence in his head that the prayer halts in his mind.

That – _voice._ It is impossible to describe: it’s millions of sounds, the most beautiful harmony he’s ever heard.

 _Father._ He thinks. He feels unworthy, more than ever, to call the Almighty with that name, so he can only whisper, “Yes, I can hear you.”

 _You are my child. You will always be. You are forgiven_ The voice says.

 _But_ – he wants to say: I have sinned, I have lied, I have killed, I have lusted after a man.

_Listen._

“I am listening.” He says. And the noise is there again, filling him up whole, making him (almost) whole.

_Watch._

Tomas. A gun pressed to his head, Mouse bound to a chair, bleeding from her neck, a voice telling him to choose.

_Watch._

Tomas, his eyes white the gun still pressed to his head, Mouse screaming.

“Tomas!” He says.

_Save him._

He will. Perhaps, that time, he will save himself too.


End file.
